


only the moon shall know

by besidemethewholedamntime



Series: a life we do not want (a life we might yet have) [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Historical AU, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Angst, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:21:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22853149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besidemethewholedamntime/pseuds/besidemethewholedamntime
Summary: "The memory of him turning her around that sunlit ballroom still haunts her dreams at night, the sound of the violins are what she wakes up to in the morning. It’s almost winter now, the sun is no longer here as much as it was, and it makes it easier to forget during the day. But her mind is not as strong in her dreams, it is much more careless, and it makes it easier to remember the feeling of his hands on her waist, or the way her looked at her as he gently spun her around and told her that he didn’t want her to go."Jemma longs for Fitz but maybe, finally, something can be done. A sequel to 'the last sunlit walk' and a gift for the wonderful Libby!
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Series: a life we do not want (a life we might yet have) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1606864
Comments: 26
Kudos: 56





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LibbyWeasley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibbyWeasley/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LIBBY! I hope you're having the most wonderful day which you deserve because you're the most wonderful bean! Thank you so much for being you! 
> 
> This is a sequel to 'the last sunlit walk' from Jemma's POV. The happy ending is coming! I also realise these kind of stand by themselves as well, and that's why they're all separate works grouped into a series rather than just different factors. You can kind of pick where you want to stop!
> 
> I hope you enjoy <3

“The books you ordered have arrived, my lady. I’ve already had them carried to the library.”

“Thank you very much, Lucy. That will be all.”

Jemma watches the maid go and then turns back to the letter she’s been trying to draft for hours now. If she thinks about it it’s really been days. Over and over again she writes the beginning, but when she gets past that her mind goes blank and suddenly it’s like standing in front of someone and having no idea what to say, her mouth opening and closing like a fish.

_Dear Fitz,_

_I hope_

The four words, black ink on ivory paper, stare back at her, mocking her in their simplicity. What does she hope? She hopes that he is well, that he is not suffering too greatly from the breaking of his engagement and that he has found a way to help his family. It seems so simple to put that in a letter, to write what she has been trying to write for the past three months now, but it’s all going so terrible wrong.

It’s her own fault – she left writing the letter too late. If she had just written it as soon as she heard, as soon as the society whispers sent it across to her, then it would have been better. But she hadn’t. She had sat on the knowledge, stewed on it, and the weeks had passed and in order to escape her thoughts she had left her comfortable estate in Yorkshire and went to Hillfoot house which had a village and a farm, and was also far enough away from everything that might dared to remind her of Fitz.

The memory of him turning her around that sunlit ballroom still haunts her dreams at night, the sound of the violins are what she wakes up to in the morning. It’s almost winter now, the sun is no longer here as much as it was, and it makes it easier to forget during the day. But her mind is not as strong in her dreams, it is much more careless, and it makes it easier to remember the feeling of his hands on her waist, or the way her looked at her as he gently spun her around and told her that he didn’t want her to go.

She has come back now, to her estate and to her life. She must resume. Life could only be paused for so long. She has come back with many resolutions, and one of those is writing to Fitz. He has no fiancée yet, she understands, and if he did, she wouldn’t write to him. She couldn’t hurt him like that. However, while he is still free, before he is engaged once again, she wants to write to him and offer an arm of friendship. She wants him to know that she still cares.

This is why she is here, sat at her writing desk in her study as opposed to in the library reading the new books she has ordered. It is why she is not in her greenhouse, consulting with her gardener about how their joint fertiliser experiment is coming along. It is why, every night, she looks out her window at the moon and sends up a silent message, hoping that he’s looking up, too, and knows what she’s trying to say.

Except silent messages aren’t what’s needed here. It’s real words, real ink on real paper. Something to be held and for the words to be felt. Something that Fitz can hold and feel and understand that she didn’t have a choice when she left him on that summer night, and that she very much wish she did.

It would have killed her. It would have been like having her heart dug out of her chest with a spoon. His fiancée was vicious, with perfect black hair and piercing blue eyes and a grin that always seemed slightly feral. To see Fitz married to such a woman, knowing how unhappy he would be, and knowing how happy she and Fitz could have been together in another life would have frayed her every nerve.

Duty. Such an old-fashioned thing. A thing cooked-up by men to make themselves feel better as they plundered villages and made an Empire. _It’s our duty_ she bets they cried. A notion that made its way into society and somehow became entangled with marriage. _It’s not for love one marries, Jemma,_ Hunter’s mother had said during the summer, her eyebrows raised as she sat with her embroidery hoop. _It’s for England. For the land._

People used duty as a way to make others miserable, to excuse the things they had done, and Fitz had been no different. Only she couldn’t hate him for it, couldn’t despise what she despised in others who used the same excuse. His father had died, leaving them penniless, and he wanted to ensure that his mother and his home were cared for. How could she hate a man like that? And he had made no secret of it, of the fact that he was looking to wed for money. Jemma had to admire that, as much as she had detested the vultures that has come circling when it was announced, all of them hoping to be the one so save the handsome Lord Leopold Fitz from financial ruin, and themselves become a Countess in the process.

It had been Hunter who had told her. Hunter who had come to ask her guardians if Jemma would be permitted to stay with his family for the summer, to make the whole thing more bearable. _They’re animals, Jemma,_ he had told her on the train, sitting in their first-class compartment. _The whole stinking lot of them. Animals. He’ll be so miserable. That’s partly the reason I’m bringing you to stay. I think you’ll make it better for him._

Jemma had wrinkled her nose, she remembers that, and had told her cousin very clearly that she would not be a pawn in some game. She had never met Fitz, though she had heard he was charming enough, but that was besides the point. She did not exist to make some man feel better and if that’s all Hunter wanted her for then she was getting off at the next station and going straight home.

She would have done it. Lately she’s been thinking about that moment often, when she was glaring at Hunter across the compartment, eyes narrowed. In that moment she wasn’t sure herself if she would have had the gall to do it but now she is and knows she would have. Hunter had just laughed and reached for her hand, and told her that having her in his house made it much more bearable for him, too.

It’s funny because it hurts, terribly so, and yet she wouldn’t take it back. Those moments she and Fitz had together over the long months she stayed with Hunter and his family. The walks they took, the expeditions in the large wood around his home. The knowing looks they shared over dinner. Even when his fiancée had come, with her unblinking eyes and porcelain skin, these moments had not abated. Rather they became more important. Fitz was sinking and these were the only life rings she could offer him before he was pulled beneath the waves.

She had to leave though, she did. He had to try and be happy with his marriage and he was never going to try if Jemma were there. She would have left soon, anyway, and gone back to Yorkshire when the weather had cooled and nobody was quite as much fun, but even before they danced together on that halcyon summer evening, she knew she had to leave before the wedding. Jemma considers herself a strong woman, but to watch someone she loves commit themselves to a lifetime of pain and heartache would be beyond what she could have borne.

Her parents died when she was small, and her father, beyond the times, arranged it so that it all went to her. The lands, the estates, the shares he had in various companies all came to his only daughter. Jemma does quite well for herself and everybody thinks so, even the guardians who must do their job until she turns twenty-five. Even still it’s not enough. She used to dream of using her wealth and status to help, she has more than enough, but successful though she is, she can’t help the one person she wants to with all her heart and it makes it hang heavy in her chest.

It was Hunter’s mother who let it slip, who told her that, if things had been different, there had once been a plan to marry the ‘Simmons girl and the Fitz boy.’ That was how his mother had described it. If the elder Lord Fitz hadn’t let money drip from his fingers as if it were water then one day, she may have married his son.

“ _She didn’t need to know that,”_ Hunter had told his mother, eyes blazing across the dining table. _“You didn’t need to tell her that.”_

“W _hat does it matter if she knows now or not?”_ The woman had said, unhappy at being spoken to like that in her own house by her own son. _“The time for it has come and gone and now the two of them must remain.”_

 _The time for it has come and gone._ Yes, Jemma supposes it has.

“My lady?”

Jemma looks up to see Lucy, one of her favourite maids, standing at the door once again.

“Yes? Is everything alright?”

“There’s a letter here for you, my lady. Delivered something urgent from the station boy.”

Jemma frowns. “Pardon me?”

“Apparently it was given to someone on the train who then gave it to the station master who then gave it to the station boy to bring up here.” Lucy looks puzzled as she recounts the tale she’s clearly not sure of herself. “Something about it being faster than the postal service, my lady.”

“A letter you say?”

Lucy nods. “Yeah, my lady. I have it here for you.”

She brings it in on a silver tray and bobs as she steps back. Jemma dismisses her with a wave of her fingers and the girl is gone by the time she picks up the letter. It’s Hunter’s handwriting, that much she knows, and the sight of it makes her heart seize up tightly in her chest. Hunter is a man who doesn’t believe in speed, and for him to send this letter with such urgency makes her quite afraid.

With trembling hands she gets her letter opener and carefully, so as not to tear the precious contents, she tears open the envelope. It’s not a thick letter, nor terribly long, but the handwriting only worsens as she unfolds the paper.

_Jemma,_

_I have no time to write anything eloquent, and you should know that’s not how I do things anyway. I’m writing this with urgency, I’m afraid. He told me not to tell you, made me swear it, and I’m not a man to break my word but in this instance, I feel I have to, but unfortunately my decision comes what could be cutting it very close to ‘too late’._

_He’s getting married again, Fitz that is. A rushed wedding but that’s hardly a surprise. They called the banns and planned it all with very little fanfare – I suppose the poor chap is still somewhat traumatised from what happened last time – but it looks set to happen. It’s the same equation, one gets money and one gets power. This one isn’t as awful, she is dull but has an ambitious family, very nouveau riche, and it’s caused quite the scandal amongst the mothers, I can tell you. My own is simply horrified. However, that is besides the point. The point is that she’s not terrible, and it’s why I have put off writing as long as I have but I can do it no longer. I have very little self-control._

_You must come, Jemma. You simply have to come. You have to come and you have to stop him before he makes this terrible mistake. He’s going to be so miserable, Jemma. Absolutely bloody miserable for the rest of his life if I allow him to go through with this. He won’t listen, though. You know how he is. He won’t listen to me or his mother or his servants or anybody else who candidly tells him that he’s being a right pillock and doing something that nobody wants for him. He’ll only listen to you. You must understand. It’s only you._

_You said it yourself, that duty is nonsense and is made up by archaic men to justify the horrible things they’ve done in the world. Well then come. Come and tell my stubborn friend that. Come and tell him that nobody wants him to do this. Nobody wants him to be in pain and alone which is what he will end up. Tell him that duty is pointless but love is not. Duty will not remember the sacrifices made in its name but love is enduring. Isn’t that what you said?_

_This letter has become a rambling mess but I have very little time, my own fault I can assure you. I have enclosed a train ticket so all that you need to do is hop on. You left some clothes here last time according to Mrs. Hallington, so there’s no need for you to pack. Just get on the train, Jemma, and stop the man you love from making this dreadful mistake._

_The wedding is in two days but hurry still, please. Knowing the awful luck the cosmos seems to have for both of you it seems like a bad decision to dawdle._

_Yours,_

_Lance Hunter_

The ticket falls out of the envelope and Jemma stares at it on her lap and wonders what it all means. She only prepared herself mentally to write the letter and perhaps even have it posted. She was not prepared for this and if there’s one thing she detests in this world it’s a lack of preparation.

_It’s only you._

It’s only Fitz for her. There will be nobody else whom she could ever love the way she loves him, that much she is sure of. But does she have the right to do this? Does she have the right to turn to Fitz and ask him to choose her above all else, knowing that she was the one who turned away?

But Hunter’s letter conveys surety as well as urgency, that Fitz is making a dreadful mistake, and she must ask herself if she could stand idly by and let it happen, knowing as much as she does now. Her cousin has asked her, begged her, to stop Fitz from doing this and could she honestly turn away once again and live with that for the rest of her life?

“Lucy?” She calls, looking down at the letter, heart in her throat, knowing the girl will be in the hallway somewhere. “Lucy? Come here a moment, would you? I need you to-”

She is cut off by the clearing of a throat that is decidedly male and looks up and sees it to be her butler. Trained by those in His Majesty’s Household, Mr Parsons is known for his excellent moustache and being decidedly stoic. No matter how long Jemma is gone these things never change. Yet today the moustache quivers slightly at the ends, and Mr Parsons’ face is uneasy.

“Excuse me, your ladyship,” he begins, the deep voice quivering slightly at the ends, too. “There are lawyers here. They wish to see you.”

“Lawyers?” Jemma feels her eyebrows pinch together, and her head swims. “What lawyers?”

“I do not know, your ladyship. They request to see you immediately.”

Mr Parsons’ tone suggests that they took a tone to him, unsuitable for a man of such an esteemed position in the household. Today, however, she cannot find it within herself to feel sorry for him.

“I have to go, Parsons. I’m terribly sorry but I have to go.” She breaks off helplessly as the man’s face doesn’t change, and she realises whatever it is must be of equal importance to this. She sighs. “Very well. Send them to the library and I shall be down in a minute.”

She places the letter down, trying so very hard not to betray her hurry when every cell in her body is screaming at her to _go._

-x-

After her meeting, head still spinning, she tears into the study like a hurricane.

“Your bags are packed, my lady,” Lucy says, hurrying in after her. “There’s a car waiting to take you to the station.”

Station? Oh, yes, to go and rescue Fitz from saving himself from financial ruin. How funny that this isn’t the strangest thing to happen to her today. Not any longer.

“Thank you very much, Lucy,” Jemma says absent-mindedly. “I’m just looking for the letter. You haven’t seen it, have you?”

Lucy’s in the middle of shaking her head when a footman comes into the room, looking awfully harried, and Jemma hazards that he might have just been told off by her formidable butler.

“Eh, the car’s ready, milady,” he stammers, turning bright red. “’E says ‘e’s got to go right now.”

“Never mind then,” Jemma says, grabbing her coat and her gloves. “Onwards we go.” Her voice is a lot calmer than her stomach but she is a master of swallowing her emotions. With a tight nod at her two servants, she swishes on out the door.

The draught in her wake causes papers to fly off her desk, the letter soaring up and then settling gently on the ground like snow.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The same thought runs in loops around her head, the same question spinning and spinning until the words no longer make sense. Do I have any right to be doing this? Can she, Lady Jemma Anne Simmons, waltz into this wedding and disrupt it? Never mind the gossip and the speculation that would surely follow. Never mind the humiliation. Would Fitz ever forgive her for it? Could she ever forgive herself?"
> 
> Jemma makes it to the church.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! I'm back again, providing an angsty-distraction from the real world. While this chapter is not the happy ending, yet, I promise you it is coming. I really do. We just have to get through this bit first!
> 
> I know what's happening in the world is scary and I can't offer anything else other than be safe and be kind. I'm always here if people want to talk!
> 
> Without further ado here's chapter 2. Chapter 3 will be happier, I promise!

Hunter, it seems, was right to advise against tempting the cosmos. Broken trains and sick drivers mean that it takes Jemma the full two days to get to where she wants to be. She arrives at the train station on the morning of the wedding, her hair long since fallen out of its pins and her dress quite creased and smelling not the most pleasant. Hunter, who has driven himself to fetch her, laughs at the sight.

“Oh dear,” he says as he hugs her, and though she cannot see him Jemma’s sure he’s screwing up his face. “Well this is a sight now, isn’t it?”

“You were right,” she tells him. “It was a mistake to tempt fate.”

“You’re here,” he says, shaking her gently like he can’t quite believe it himself. “It’s going to be alright.”

She tries to quell her stomach that suddenly feels as though it’s doing somersaults. She’s been so preoccupied with getting here for the past two days that nerves would have just distracted from her goal. In fact, she didn’t even realise she had nerves until this very moment.

“Is it?” She asks in a small voice, but Hunter has already started walking ahead and is now too far away to hear.

-x-

“She’s alright. That’s the nicest thing I have to say about the woman, Jemma; indeed, it’s the _only_ thing I have to say about her. Wherever he found such a dull person I don’t think I shall ever want to know. Or perhaps I do so I can make a point of never visiting.”

Jemma can’t find it within herself to answer. Her throat has constricted so much that it makes it impossible. She can feel Hunter look over at her.

“It’ll be alright, Jemma. We’ll be there in no time. We’re almost at the church.”

A bolt of panic shoots through her and she turns to her cousin with wide eyes. “What do you mean ‘church’?”

Hunter just raises his eyebrow, suddenly concentrating intensely on the road.

“Oh, it’s happening right now, isn’t it?” She moans. “I can’t go like this. I look like an absolute fright.”

“You look lovely.”

Jemma looks at him, unimpressed written across her features. “You are a terrible liar.”

“What does it matter what you look like? All that matters is that you stop him from getting married. Besides, isn’t it more fitting that you look a little dishevelled? It makes it a lot more dramatic, don’t you think?”

Her eye roll is of epic proportions, and she’s rather sad she wasted it at a time when he couldn’t see it. “You’re loving the drama of this, aren’t you? That’s all you really care about.”

“On the contrary, Jemma, I care quite a lot about my friend and about his happiness.”

“You seem to be enjoying this a little too much for me to be certain.”

He turns a corner a little too forcefully, and Jemma wonders if she’s crossed a line. A hand briefly squeezes her knee.

“It’s either laugh or cry, Jemma. Laugh or cry.”

She says nothing after that, nerves having finally gotten to her tongue. The same thought runs in loops around her head, the same question spinning and spinning until the words no longer make sense. _Do I have any right to be doing this?_ Can she, Lady Jemma Anne Simmons, waltz into this wedding and disrupt it? Never mind the gossip and the speculation that would surely follow. Never mind the humiliation. Would Fitz ever forgive her for it? Could she ever forgive herself?

“I’m not sure if I should be doing this,” she murmurs, feeling ever so small. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Of course it isn’t. It’s a horrible idea.” Jemma looks over to see if Hunter is joking but his mouth is in a tight line. “But what other choice do we have? He won’t listen to anybody else.”

“Maybe we should do nothing,” she says quietly. “Maybe he doesn’t want to be stopped.”

“You’re a bloody idiot if you believe that,” he snorts.

“Fitz isn’t some spineless fish,” she says, sitting up straighter. “He has a mind of his own. If he truly didn’t want this then he wouldn’t be doing it.”

“Is that truly what you think?”

Is it? She has no idea. It would kill her, that is all. It would destroy her if she turned up to this wedding and stopped it only to find out that he was truly happy. She wants Fitz to be happy, even if it may not be with her.

She cannot lie to Hunter. “No,” she says, deflating against the leather seat. “It’s not.”

-x-

The church is terribly crowded when they drive up to it. The mothers may be up in arms about it all, but they would never dare to miss it. Jemma anxiously smooths her dress and pats her hair. Hunter finds some perfume in the backseat ( _‘from_ _a lady friend, but an honest one’_ ) and sprays it liberally until they are both spluttering.

“Where is everybody?” She asks, looking around. There are cars and chauffeurs galore but none of the guests.

“They must already be inside.”

“What time is it?”

Hunter looks at his watch. “Twenty-five to one.”

“And what time does the wedding start?”

His face pales slightly. “Five minutes ago.”

“Oh, _bother._ ”

He sprays some more perfume and pats her hair awkwardly. “Right then, you better get moving.”

“Aren’t you coming?”

Hunter’s eyes are suddenly serious and his voice is suddenly wobbly. The enormity of the situation suddenly settles on her shoulders.

“This is your moment, sunshine. Go and make him listen.”

She gets out of the car, pretending that her legs aren’t shaking and her heart isn’t pounding and it’s only the overpowering perfume that makes her feel nauseous. Taking a deep breath, calling on every ounce of strength she has, she walks right up to the church door, the organ music faint through the heavy oak.

“It’ll be fine. I know it,” Hunter says from behind.

She knows he’s lying; he doesn’t know a damn thing. She can’t quite bring herself to berate him for it.

-x-

Everybody is staring at her – heavy, painful stares that she feels on her skin like spikes – but the one person she wants to look at her the most is the person who has yet to see she is there.

Fitz is looking at the ground as if he would very much like to disappear through it. On trembling legs, with no sign of a bride anywhere, she walks up the aisle, and is unsure if Fitz is ignoring her or not until she is standing in front of him and presses a hand gently to his jacket and he jumps as if she has shocked him.

“ _Jemma,_ ” he breathes like the wind has been knocked out of him. His eyes are endless and if she’s not careful she will float away in them and forget the reason she is here. “Why are you _here_?”

“I heard you were getting married again,” she says quietly, but it feels to her like she is shouting. She knows without looking back that everyone is leaning in, trying to catch a word. This will be talked about for years to come, and she hasn’t quite gotten to the point where she doesn’t care. “I came here to stop it.”

It sounds awfully melodramatic and yet it’s the truth, the truest thing. She thinks dully, _this would make an excellent play._

“What? You’re talking nonsense, like someone out of a book.”

His confusion is almost comical and she wishes she could laugh.

“Hunter wrote to me,” she attempts to explain. “He told me the situation and I’m here to tell you,” she takes a deep breath. “I’m here to tell you that you’re being stupid, Fitz. You can’t get married today.”

Confusion has morphed to anger and she can see the way his jaw tightens with it. He always has had a terrible temper. She wonders if the setting will be enough to dissuade him from letting it grip him entirely.

“He had no bloody right,” he seethes lowly, barely audible. “This is the middle of the wedding. It’s too late.”

“No, it’s not,” she insists, voice getting stronger. “She isn’t here yet, is she? You could leave now. You could apologise and you could leave. It would do you both a favour.”

“And where do you get that idea from?”

She sighs, resisting an urge to stamp her foot. “You don’t want to marry her for love, and neither does she want to marry you. You’ll both be so miserable, Fitz, can’t you see? I let you go once because I wasn’t sure but now I am.”

“Enough,” he says, and for a second the anger drains away and he just appears to be a very sad man at the end of his tether. “This isn’t about you, or about me. It’s about my duty.”

“Duty is ridiculous,” she snorts. “Nobody wants you to do this. Not one person. They would rather go homeless than see you in this state and you’re too foolish to listen to them. Your head is inflated with doing the right thing, the noble thing. The idea is so romantic, isn’t it, but the follow through not so much?” In a state of madness herself she grips his arm. “Come on, Fitz. Don’t do this. Don’t get married. Please.”

His face slackens completely and he sways towards her imperceptibly. Jemma thinks he might just take her up on it but then he looks down at the hand on his arm and very softly, very gently, he shakes it off.

“I have to,” he whispers, almost as though he’s appalled with himself. “I’m sorry but I – I have to.”

She looks down at her hand that has dropped uselessly to her side. It feels as though it’s burned. It feels bloody cruel. Tears burn in the corner of her eyes. “You’re selfish,” she hisses. “You pretend this is for a good reason but it isn’t.”

“Please, Jemma,” he breathes again, and it’s like a prayer. She hears it in his voice, in the two syllables of her name. An offering. A plea. It sounds as though his heart is breaking. _Don’t make this any harder than it has to be._

But she is hurt, too, now. She is hurt beyond belief. She knows his reasons and his pride but she had thought, maybe just, that he would choose her beyond all else. She had hoped he would just cast it all aside and say that it didn’t matter. The house didn’t matter and the lands didn’t matter and the titles didn’t matter. There had been some small part of her that had believed he would have swept it aside and taken her in his arms and muttered the words they both know to be true: _it’s you, Jemma. It’s only you._

He isn’t that man, though. He will not simply cast everything aside, not when he has promised, and despite the agonising hurt she is also rather glad. She’s not sure it would have been Fitz if he did.

The angry part is bigger, though. Bigger than anything else, and she cannot turn and leave gracefully. She is Jemma Anne Simmons, after all, and she is not one to leave it well alone with Leopold James Fitz.

 _I’m rich now, don’t you know?_ She wants to bite out, but quietly so that the straining ears may not listen in. _A great aunt left her vast inheritance to me. It’s worth more than ten times of your estate. I’m enough for you now, aren’t I? I’m worth it now, my aunt would no doubt say_.

He looks at her, barely blinking, and she continues her tirade in her head.

 _You could have had it_ , she wants to say and knows her voice would be very close to tears. _You would have been welcome to it. But you didn’t love me enough to stop this, and you didn’t love me enough to try. We could have been together. We could have been happy, Fitz, finally. We could have danced in that ballroom for years and years to come_.

Instead she steps back from him and raises her chin.

“Well I hope you’re happy,” she says, not meaning a word. “I hope you and whoever she is – who is ten minutes late for her own wedding and is clearly not very prepared – will be very happy indeed, with your lonely, lonely honourable lives.”

He reaches for her, a tiny movement, but one she does not miss.

“That’s too little,” she shakes her head. “And it is already much too late.”

And with that and with tears in her eyes, she flees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We got this and we got each other. All will be well eventually <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She looks up then, because that tone is one of pure relief, and her sore, swollen eyes meet those endless ones that belong to Fitz. She wishes she could be happy he is here, but instead it all comes rushing over her again and she bursts into tears."
> 
> The finale which contains, as promised, the happy ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're finally here! It's so lovely to be here and give them what they deserve! I hope you like it :)

Hunter drives her back to his home without a word and as soon as he pulls up in front of the house she gets out the car, stifling a sob, and runs to the gardens and finds a bench, the bench she always sits at when she visits here, and cries and cries until her stomach hurts and she’s not sure she’ll ever catch her breath again.

She stays there for hours, curled up with her head on her knees and her arms wrapped around herself. It replays over and over again in her mind, that horrible moment, that horrible feeling, where she knew, she just knew, what Fitz was going to say. That look in his eyes of utter regret, of utter pain, and she wishes she could hate him for it because it would be so much cleaner. Anger would let her stand up and walk into the house. Anger would let her go home. Anger would let him go.

But she isn’t angry, as much as she wishes she could be. She’s just incredibly sad, and lonely, and with this public rejection she feels even more cut off from this society she inhibits. Alone and adrift and completely unsure of herself. What to do? She has no idea, so she just cries, figuring that she is allowed this for now.

She stays there for goodness knows how long, until her tears have all dried up but she cannot move for then it becomes real. As soon as she goes inside she has to deal with Hunter, his mother – who will no doubt chastise her for her completely unreasonable behaviour – and everybody else who was there. She will have to go home, back to her lovely estate with Lucy and her books and the gardener who was helping her with science. She will have to deal with her newfound wealth, mourn properly for a great aunt she has never met, and deal with all of those things she hasn’t dealt with because she so dearly wanted to save Fitz.

“Jemma?”

That voice surely must be in her head. She’s been doubled over so long she’s imagining things. It must be. There’s no way it’s him.

“Jemma? Are you here?”

So, whoever it is hasn’t turned the corner and found her on the bench next to the rosebush. There’s still a very good chance this is all in her head.

“ _Jemma._ Thank God. There you are.”

She looks up then, because that tone is one of pure relief, and her sore, swollen eyes meet those endless ones that belong to Fitz. She wishes she could be happy he is here, but instead it all comes rushing over her again and she bursts into tears.

“Oh, Jemma. No, don’t cry.” He’s by her side in a second, and she feels his hand ghost over her shoulder but she twists it away.

“Please, Fitz. I don’t need your pity. Just go away.”

“I would never dare pity you,” he says, with a slight humourless chuckle. “I’m here to apologise.”

“You can save it,” she spits. “I don’t want it. It’s done. It’s all done.”

“No, actually. It’s not.”

His tone is different and while she doesn’t look at him, she looks at the hand that’s very close to hers on the wooden bench. There is a glaring absence on a certain finger. She can’t believe it.

“You didn’t get married,” she states dumbly.

“No. I didn’t.”

“I can’t believe you, Fitz!” There’s a delicious anger in the pit of her stomach and she grabs onto it, fans the flames to keep them burning. “You ended up not getting married anyway. Why did you do that? Why didn’t you decide when I was there? Instead you let me humiliate myself in front of everybody we’ve ever known.”

“I know,” he tells her, his voice carrying a quiet conviction of its own. “I know and I’m sorry. I’m just so bloody sorry, Jemma.”

She feels her bottom lip begin to tremble and she hates herself for it but every cell in her body strains towards him. “Why now? Why did you decide now?”

He rubs the back of his neck. “Hunter dragged me outside after he brought you here. Looked like he wanted to punch me. Told me that there was no hope if I wouldn’t even listen to you.”

“But you listened to him it looks like.”

“No, Jemma. I didn’t.” He takes her hands in his and she lets him, intrigued by his tone. He takes a deep breath. “I was standing there at the altar, waiting for Cecelia to come in, and I heard your voice in my head. You were right. You’ve always been right. Nobody wanted me to do this, and I didn’t want to do this.”

“You knew that months ago,” she says, unwilling to let him off that easy.

“But now I _know._ I understand. I don’t want anybody else. I only want you.”

It’s the words she’s longed to hear ever since she met him, she thinks, for even then they were placed in her subconscious.

“But what of your family?” She asks, knowing she has the solution and realising that he doesn’t. “Your house? You would despise me if you gave them all up for me, Fitz. Perhaps not now, or not in a year, but in ten years maybe, you would look at me only you wouldn’t see me. You would see everything you gave up.”

He tilts his head to the side and smiles that impossibly soft smile that makes her feel as though she could turn molten right now. “Jemma,” he begins, and his voice is impossible soft, too. “I could never despise you.”

“But you might, though,” she protests, though it’s half-hearted.

“No.” His voice is not emphatic, but it’s firm, and it’s enough to dispel any doubt. “I could never.”

It’s the assurance she needs and she sighs and says, “You don’t need to worry about your family.”

“I’ll try not to. I’ll try find some other way to get the money. I’ll meet with the lawyers for-”

“No, Fitz,” she interrupts, unable to stop herself from smiling. “You don’t need to find some other way to get the money. I have it now.”

She explains about the inheritance from a great aunt she has never met, indeed never even heard of. She explains how it was all quite a surprise, and a bit too coincidental for her to believe it’s entirely real.

“But it is!” She exclaims, unable to keep the glee out of her voice. “It’s real, and you may have it. You may have all of it.”

His face crumples and he says, “I love you, so much, but no. I can’t take your money.”

“What?!” She winces, for she didn’t mean to shout quite so loud. “If this is about taking money from a woman, Fitz, I swear to God, I will-”

“No, please.” He shakes his head. “It’s nothing like that. I just can’t let you do it. I can’t let you waste your family money, your own inheritance, on my mistakes.”

It’s her own argument, slightly twisted, and thrown back at her, and she cannot condemn him for it, but she doesn’t have to accept it.

“I wish you would stop blaming yourself for things that aren’t your own fault.” She takes his other hand in hers. “They are your father’s mistakes. His and his alone. I love you and I want to help you. Let me.”

“Jemma…”

“No,” she says emphatically. “No, you don’t get to tell me no. Not a third time. You don’t get to disappoint me again and keep me on the edge. If you don’t want me then say it now and I’ll go, with no reproach, and you and I can remain friends, if you like, or we can become strangers. The choice will be yours. But if you want me, Fitz, if you love me as you say you do then show me. Show me that you love me.”

Still holding hands, she brings them closer to her. “I don’t want to buy your home, nor make it mine. I want to make it _ours._ I want to make a life with you.” She looks into his face and notices how he holds her eyes, when every other time he has looked away. “What do you say?”

Fitz always has answers, this she has learned in the year since she has known him. He has such a way with words, stuttered or as fragmented as they may be. It is him she would have pegged as being the one to deliver the grand romantic speech, the one to rival all the poets and writers. While hers is not book-worthy, that she freely admits, it’s a damn lot more than he has said. For the first time she feels equal and she knows that she will allow nothing to bring her down.

Fitz brings Jemma’s hands closer to his heart and they are so close now that if her aunt comes into the garden she’ll faint clean away. Jemma finds it would be very hard for her to care, not when she’s finally living in the moment she thought she would only have in her dreams.

“Lady Jemma Simmons,” he begins, unable to help his smile. “Will you marry me?”

“Now I want you to be sure,” she says, a touch mischievously. “This will be your third marriage proposal in as many months.”

Fitz looks affronted for half a second but then he grins and shrugs. “Third time lucky?”

Her heart feels so full it could burst. “I suppose we’ll take the chance. I will marry you, Lord Leopold Fitz. I would have done so months ago.”

He huffs good-naturedly. “Well I clearly wasn’t as caught up as you were, but don’t worry. I’m quite there now.”

It’s quite improper for them to kiss, when the engagement isn’t even official by society standards, but then again neither was crashing the wedding. They are never going to be official, proper people, and Jemma rather likes it that way.

Just before though, when their foreheads are touching and she can feel his warm breath on her face, she says, “We’ll be happy, won’t we? Duty and all that be dammed. We won’t worry about it anymore?”

“We’ll never worry about it again,” he assures her. “It’s you and me. Forever. Nothing else matters except that.”

It’s the promise she needed, the assurance that, despite his proposal, she knows she couldn’t have gone without. So she kisses Fitz and she enjoys it, knowing that this time she doesn’t have to savour the time they have together while she waits for it to end. She is his and he is hers and now, finally, this is the way it shall stay. Until death do them part, and then long after.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday, Libby! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please feel free to leave kudos/comments. Please feel free not to. Either way, I hope you have a lovely day!


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